HELL'S ISLAND (director: Phil Karlson; screenwriter: Maxwell Shane/unpublished story by Jack Leonard & Martin Goldsmith; cinematographer: Lionel Lindon; cast: John Payne (Mike Cormack), Mary Murphy (Janet Martin), Francis L. Sullivan (Barzland), Arnold Moss (Paul Armand), Paul Picerni (Eduardo Martin), Edward Noriega (Inspector Pena), Walter Reed (Lawrence), Sándor Szabó (Torbig), Robert Cabal (Miguel), Pepe Hern (Lalo), 1955)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
A melodramatic noir film, with location shots in the Caribbean. Mike Cormack (John Payne) is a former assistant district attorney who, after his fiancee dumps him to marry another man, develops a drinking problem, and is currently employed as a bouncer in a Las Vegas casino, the "Blue Diamond." While there, he receives an odd proposition from a wheel-chair bound criminal, Barzland (Francis L. Sullivan), played by him with Sydney Greenstreet-like panache. He offers Cormack $5,000 to tell him where a missing ruby that is owed to him can be located, mentioning that it vanished in a plane crash in the Caribbean. The reason Cormack is picked for this job, is that the pilot involved in the smuggling operation, Eduardo (Picerni), is the one who married Janet Martin (Mary Murphy), the beautiful woman whom Cormack was engaged to, and Barzland figures he can get close to Janet to get the info he needs to recover the gem.
The film is told in flashback-style, with a voiceover from the world-weary Cormack filling us in on the details of what happened to him during the last crucial week of his life. As the opening credits go rolling by, we see Barzland shoot Cormack and, when Cormack wakes up in the hospital operating room after surgery, the police are questioning him and in particular, are asking him about his relationship with Janet.
The operation symbolizes that the crest-fallen Cormack is now healed and sees things clearly, as tells about his trip to the Caribbean, where he meets Janet and gets fooled by her lies again. Before he can settle down on the island, he learns that Eduardo is in jail for life, accused of killing his partner in the transportation business by sabotaging his flying instruments and causing him to die in a crash. He will later learn from Janet that her husband is innocent, that it was she who toyed around with the fuel gauge but her husband took the blame for it.
When Cormack questions a cockfighter about the ruby, he is mysteriously killed, as is the housekeeper, Miguel (Cabal), who works for Mrs. Martin. Barzland will have his henchmen beat up Cormack when he suspects him of double-crossing him and going over to Janet's side. After being locked up by Barzland, Cormack escapes and has to throw one of Barzland's henchmen (Szabó) to the alligators. As a result of Cormack's short stay on the island, there are three dead.
Why Cormack doesn't leave, is what makes him a typical noir icon. He offers three reasons for staying put: 1) He has fallen for Janet again. 2) He wants to earn 5,000. 3) He wants to know who killed the cockfighter.
Things come to a climax when he meets another sleazy friend of Janet's, Paul Armand (Moss), a merchant, and they concoct a plan of prison escape for Eduardo. Cormack goes along with the plan, but is surprised that when he tries to get Eduardo to escape with him, he won't go, telling Cormack that his wife can't be trusted, that she only wants him out of prison to kill him and get a $100,000 insurance policy he has on him, and he is positive that she has informed the police already, who will only shoot him if he leaves.
The flashback then returns to the scene of Cormack getting shot by Barzland, but what wasn't shown the first time around, now is seen.
John Payne's angst and disgust with life reaches a point in the story, where he realizes he can't slide any further down hill than he has already. He has lost all sense of self-esteem by falling again for the beautiful Mary Murphy without seeing her for what she really is. We hear in his voiceover the details of his blind love affair while he is on the operating table, and when he walks out of the hospital, he is seen with a slight smile on his face, indicating that he is now a new man, free from his past mistakes.
REVIEWED ON 12/1/99 GRADE: B-
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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